Conservative Thought

Paul Kengor

Paul Kengor, Ph.D., is professor of political science at Grove City College, a four-year, private Christian liberal arts college in Grove City, Pennsylvania, and a New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books. He is executive director of the Center for Vision & Values, a Grove City College think-tank/policy center. He is also a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Kengor is an internationally recognized authority on several subjects, particularly Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and communism. He is often quoted in major publications, from USA Today to the Los Angeles Times to the Chronicle of Higher Education to the Washington Post to the Associated Press, as well as foreign publications ranging from the Irish Times to Pravda. His articles have appeared in numerous publications from across the ideological spectrum: the New York Times, New York Post, CNN.com, FoxNews.com, National Review, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Washington Times, USA Today, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Roll Call, Weekly Standard, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer, Christianity Today, World magazine, National Catholic Reporter, National Catholic Register, Our Sunday Visitor, Jewish Press, Jewish World Review, International Herald Tribune, and many others. He has published major articles in top refereed, scholarly/academic journals, such as Political Science Quarterly and Presidential Studies Quarterly.

Dr. Kengor released two books in 2015. The first is a co-edited volume (with Jeffrey Chidester, University of Virginia), titled Reagan’s Legacy in a World Transformed. Published by Harvard University Press, it is being billed as a seminal scholarly work on President Ronald Reagan. He also published Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage, a shocking chronology of how the far left has sought to take down natural-traditional-biblical marriage and family, culminating in the left seizing upon same-sex marriage as the long-sought vehicle—one that has mainstream public support—to finally succeed in redefining marriage and family, as well as attacking religion. These books follow his 2014 work, 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative, one of his many books on President Ronald Reagan.

Kengor has authored over a dozen books, including several bestsellers. More recently, his 2012 profile of Frank Marshall Davis, mentor to Barack Obama, titled, The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, the Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor (Simon & Schuster, Threshold/Mercury Ink), debuted at #9 on the New York Times bestseller list and hit #1 in non-fiction at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com. Based on declassified FBI files and Soviet and Communist Party USA archives, the book garnered a significant amount of public attention.

In 2010, Kengor published Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century (ISI Books). Based on extensive Soviet archival research, particularly the Comintern Archives on Communist Party USA, the book examines the exploitation of American liberals by communists beginning in the early 20th century.

Prior to Dupes, Dr. Kengor published another major Cold War work, focused on Ronald Reagan’s role in undermining the Soviet Union, titled, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan & the Fall of Communism. The Crusader includes never-before-published documents from KGB archives, Soviet media archives, and once-secret but now declassified NSC, White House, and Reagan administration documents. Originally released in hardcover in October 2006 (HarperCollins), the paperback rights were purchased by HarperPerennial for release in September 2007. The book was translated for release in Poland in October 2007. The book was also translated into Estonian and Korean, and is being considered for Albanian.

Also in 2007, Kengor released God and Hillary Clinton (HarperCollins), the first and only examination of the faith and spiritual life of the former first lady. In November 2007, he published (with co-author Patricia Clark Doerner) The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand (Ignatius Press), a long-awaited biography of Ronald Reagan’s close friend and most influential foreign-policy adviser. The Judge is the only book to be endorsed by two living ex-presidents from differing political parties: President Jimmy Carter and President George H. W. Bush.

Kengor’s best-known work is God and Ronald Reagan (ReganBooks, HarperCollins, 2004), which made bestseller lists for The New York Times (extended list), Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Christian Retailing, among others; the book reached #2 on Amazon’s non-fiction list. He is author of Go

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Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and creator of Tom Woods’s Liberty Classroom. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and his master’s, M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University. Woods has appeared on CNBC, MSNBC, FOX News Channel, FOX Business Network, C-SPAN, and Bloomberg Television, among other outlets, and has been a guest on hundreds of radio programs, including National Public Radio, the Dennis Miller Show, the Michael Reagan Show, the Dennis Prager Show, and the Michael Medved Show. He is a regular fill-in host on The Peter Schiff Show.

Woods is the author of eleven books, most recently Rollback: Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse and Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century. His other books include the New York Times bestsellers Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse (read Ron Paul’s foreword) and The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, as well as Who Killed the Constitution? The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to Barack Obama (with Kevin R.C. Gutzman), Sacred Then and Sacred Now: The Return of the Old Latin Mass, 33 Questions About American History You’re Not Supposed to Ask, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, and The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy. His critically acclaimed 2004 book The Church Confronts Modernity was recently released in paperback by Columbia University Press. A collection of Woods’ essays, called W obronie zdrowego rozsadku, was released exclusively in Polish in 2007. Woods’ books have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Polish, French, German, Czech, Portuguese, Croatian, Slovak, Russian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese.

Woods edited and wrote the introduction to five additional books: Back on the Road to Serfdom: The Resurgence of Statism, We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now (with Murray Polner), Murray N. Rothbard’s The Betrayal of the American Right, The Political Writings of Rufus Choate, and Orestes Brownson’s 1875 classic The American Republic. He contributed the preface to Choosing the Right College and the foreword both to Ludwig von Mises’ Liberalism and to Abel Upshur’s A Brief Enquiry into the True Nature and Character of Our Federal Government. He is also the author of Beyond Distributism, part of the Acton Institute’s Christian Social Thought Series.

Woods won the $50,000 first prize in the prestigious Templeton Enterprise Awards for 2006, given by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the Templeton Foundation, for his book The Church and the Market. He was the recipient of the 2004 O.P. Alford III Prize for Libertarian Scholarship and of an Olive W. Garvey Fellowship from the Independent Institute in 2003. He has also been awarded two Humane Studies Fellowships and a Claude R. Lambe Fellowship from the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University and a Richard M. Weaver Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Cost: $4,000 plus airfare and lodging

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Michael Reagan is the eldest son of former President Ronald Reagan and one of the most dynamic and sought after public speakers in the public arena today. His commitments to public service and the conservative vision his father championed are second to none, making him the natural heir to the Reagan conservative legacy.

Michael spent nearly two decades as a conservative radio talk show host, heard across the country daily on a show syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks. He left this position to travel the country in order to champion President Reagan's values and principals in the public policy forum and through candidates who embody his father's legacy.

In his work to further the inspirational legacy of his father, Michael also serves as chairman and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation, which seeks to advance the causes President Reagan held dear and to memorialize the accomplishments of his presidency. Among the charitable activities the Foundation supports are: offering scholarships for the sailors, marines and airmen serving aboard aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and their family members; supporting programs for children in need of adoption and those in the foster care system; educating Americans about Alzheimer's disease and searching for a cure.

Michael has also appeared for years on network television as a commentator and guest on the Today Show, Good Morning America, and Nightline, and has been a frequent Fox News Contributor.

On the philanthropic side, Michael is actively involved in charities and public service entities across the United States, including: The John Douglas French Alzheimer's Foundation (Current Chair), The Young America’s Foundation, The Santa Barbara Navy League/USS Ronald Reagan Crew Enhancement Program, The Arrow Project for Neglected and Abused Children, and the Olive View-UCLA Medical Center Foundation’s Advisory board. In addition, Michael was honored in 2006 as an electee to the board of trustees of Eureka College, President Reagan’s Alma Mater.

Michael has always been a pioneer; he is a man who has done everything from debating Mikhail Gorbachev to setting world records in powerboat racing. His racing raised more than $1.5 million for charities like the United States Olympic Team, Cystic Fibrosis, the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and the Statue of Liberty Restoration Fund, as a result of which he was given the “Victory Award” for outstanding sports and humanitarian achievement.

Besides his weekly column, read nationwide in more than 300 newspapers, Mike has authored many successful books including his best-selling autobiography, On the Outside Looking In; The Common Sense of An Uncommon Man: The Wit, Wisdom and Eternal Optimism of Ronald Reagan; Twice Adopted; and Mike’s latest, The New Reagan Revolution: How Ronald Reagan's Principles Can Restore America's Greatness.

Mike and his wife, Colleen, have two children and reside in Toluca Lake, California.

Cost: $15,000 - $20,000

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According to RedState, an online conservative news source, "KCarl Smith is one of the influential people in America you have never heard of. Most certainly, KCarl is one of the most important people grassroots conservatives and Republican Party leaders should be listening to right now."

As one of our leading conservative thinkers, KCarl is the author, Frederick Douglass Republicans: The Movement to Re-Ignite America’s Passion for Liberty (with Dr. K. Clarence Smith, Sr.) Based on his best-selling book, KCarl ingeniously developed a proven and powerful strategy to tackle the biggest challenge facing the conservative movement?diversity engagement. It’s called the Frederick Douglass Republican Methodology. In fact, in 2011, an upper level executive of the NAACP, who wishes to remain unidentified, read KCarl’s book and commented, “If the message in KCarl’s book gets on a national level, the Democrat Party would be toast and President Obama would be history.”

It was KCarl’s Frederick Douglass Republican message that inspired Louisiana State Senate Elbert Guillory’s party switch from Democrat to Republican. Here’s what Senator Guillory has to say about KCarl and the Frederick Douglass Republican message:

“A year ago, after months of soul searching and extreme discomfort with Democrat Party’s stances on marriage, abortion, guns and work, KCarl helped me find comfort in the GOP’s values. Then he helped me articulate my need to change. As I write these words, I recall my turmoil and pain and I thank God for sending KCarl to my rescue.” - Senator Elbert Guillory

KCarl visits more than 15 colleges and universities a year. You may have seen KCarl on the 700 Club, The Blaze TV and FoxNEWS’ Huckabee Show. He is featured in Rev. C.L. Bryant’s Runaway Slave Documentary.

KCarl Smith is the Founder and President of the newly formed non-profit Frederick Douglass Institute for Liberty, additional information to come.

Cost: $5,000 requested, travel, and lodging is provided by the Frederick Douglass Institute for Liberty.

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Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated radio talk show, The Phil Valentine Show, which is heard in about 100 markets across the United States. He has been named by Talkers Magazine as one of the Heavy Hundred: The 100 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts in America and is listed by Talkers as one of the top 100 talk show hosts of all time. He is the author of several books including The Conservative's Handbook, Tax Revolt and Right from the Heart.

His film, An Inconsistent Truth, is winner of three film festival awards including Best Documentary at the Nevada Film Festival and the Excellence in Filmmaking award from the Anthem Film Festival. An Inconsistent Truth is the 20th top grossing nature documentary of all time at the box office. It grossed more than notable films Gasland, Fuel and Cool It.

Valentine's talk show in his home market is the most listened to talk show in Nashville, routinely garnering twice the listeners of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. His show is the recipient of 18 AIR Awards and three prestigious New York Festivals awards including the Gold World Medal for Best Talk Show.

Cost: $2,000 plus travel expenses & lodging

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Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Before joining Cato, he was a special assistant/advisor to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule of law issues and practiced international, political, commercial, and antitrust litigation at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb. Shapiro has contributed to a variety of academic, popular, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, L.A. Times, USA Today, National Law Journal, Weekly Standard, New York Times Online, and National Review Online. He also regularly provides commentary for various media outlets, including CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC, Univision and Telemundo, The Colbert Report, NPR, and American Public Media’s Marketplace. Shapiro has provided testimony to Congress and state legislatures and, as coordinator of Cato’s amicus brief program, filed more than 100 “friend of the court” briefs in the Supreme Court. He lectures regularly on behalf of the Federalist Society and other groups, is a member of the Legal Studies Institute’s board of visitors at The Fund for American Studies, was an inaugural Washington Fellow at the National Review Institute, and has been an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Law School. Before entering private practice, Shapiro clerked for Judge E. Grady Jolly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, while living in Mississippi and traveling around the Deep South. He holds an A.B. from Princeton University, an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School (where he became a Tony Patiño Fellow). Shapiro is a member of the bars of New York, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a native speaker of English and Russian, is fluent in Spanish and French, and is proficient in Italian and Portuguese.

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